The Mosaic Table

A couple of years ago I came across some bags of tiny pieces of coloured mirror in a craft shop, and decided to make a mosaic table. This was heavily influenced by a couple of mosaics at my Grandmother's house: one was of two fish, built from pieces of lino in blue and beige shades, and hung above the stove; the other was a print of that famous Roman mosaic depicting a large octopus. As a child I was very impressed by the concept of being able to create curves and shades of colour simply by using little squares (you have to remember, this was before computers and pixels LOL), and so I though, "How hard can it be? I'll just get the materials together and spent a few hours glueing Part A to Part B, and I'll have a mosaic coffee table!" I should know by now that any bright idea that starts with the though "How hard can it be..." should filed in the Too Hard Basket and left well alone, but The Blonde Has No Learning Curve and I forged womanfully ahead with the idea. It took two whole weeks and I had to use tweezers to place the pieces of glass... Never again. Until next time. Hmmm, how totally KOOL would a mosaic kitchen floor look?!

Anyway, I found a very acceptable table frame at the local dump's recycling outlet, gave it a couple of coats of paint and ran a piece of timber down the middle as extra reinforcing; then I glued the little (about 5mm square-ish) tiles to a piece of black masonite. Once it was finished, I filled the gaps with black grouting and then splashed a few coats of polyurethane varnish over the entire thing in a vain attempt to make it waterproof (well, coffee-proof..). And it's pretty... and it's original... and the boycat loves it...